This amended road sign in Scotland has always amused me.[caption id="attachment_2055" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Beware of the elephants!"][/caption]

Xkcd's cartoon today on Christmas songs and baby-boomers in the USA.  But of course we in the UK favour Slade!

Well, I joined Google+ while in France.  Which has resulted in a strange blend of English and French in by Google+ page (Franglais?).  Anyway, until I build up enough contacts in my circles, I see tumbleweed blowing.  The interface is clean and easy to use, far less cluttered than Facebook.  I picked up a link to this xkcd cartoon (amusingly, via Google+).[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="428" caption="Google+"][/caption]

OK, as well as marking the death of Steve Jobs, today's xkcd cartoon pretty well sums up today's experience of working with Word on a MacBook Pro:[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="370" caption="Eternal Flame"][/caption]This has happened to me several times today.  It spins and it spins until  I force Word to quit.

Well, here's another spectacularly geeky cartoon from xkcd:[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="319" caption="X11"][/caption]I've just been playing with the beta release of Ubuntu GNU/Linux 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot, if I have the spelling correct), due for release this week - tomorrow if memory serves.  I had some issues with screen resolution, so this cartoon resonates with me.  If there's one thing I hate, it's trying to sort out screen resolutions that haven't been detected.Incidentally, the latest release of Ubuntu seems to me to have sorted out many of the issues I've had with the Unity desktop, and I have new-found enthusiasm for it.  Perhaps I'll write a bit more about Ubuntu 11.10 later this week

In my work mailbox, I receive a daily dose of emails soliciting my participation in international conferences (usually, but not always, located in China or one of the arab nations, and usually in a field or research I'm not active in), or soliciting my involvement in a journal.  Usually, the journal emails are for what I would consider 'vanity press' publications, and either involve invitations to join editorial boards or to submit a paper.  Today's mailbox includes this wonderfully personalised email:I don't suppose it's too bad, being referred to as Dr firstname!

This is like a scene from my life with computers...

It's not often I see telomeres referenced in a web comic. Here's today's Dilbert:

The latest cartoon from xkcd refers to my favourite episode of Star Trek: TNG.  Actually, I suppose I generally found ST:TNG rather un-memorable, usually with facile plot resolutions.  But this episode I thought was quite imaginative.[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="414" caption="xkcd: Darmok and Jalad"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="444" caption="Beauty"][/caption]

A seasonal cartoon from xkcd...[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="551" caption="Incident"][/caption]Somebody must read all those logfiles...surely?

Here's a rather good webcomic from the ever-reliable xkcd.com:Actually, it's a very pressing concern - how does one keep track (securely) of the passwords that protect our many accounts round the web?  Not quite so sure about Google, though!

The latest from xkcd tickled me - this sort of conversation with "tech" support is why I changed ISP (well, that and the Phorm phiasco).[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="xkcd - Tech Support"][/caption]

So, there appears to be a new Microsoft XBox 360 campaign running on UK TV, hot on the heels of the annoying Windows 7 shorts - I caught it last night on ITV. The first part of the catch phrase is:

Here today

Gone tomorrow

Ready for tomorrow

Perusing the UK Governments web consultation on the repeal of unnecessary legislation, I came across this one - Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics — HMG - Your Freedom.  Woohoo!  Just for posterity, the proposer ays:

The second law of thermodynamics has been responsible for the decline in order everywhere since it was passed by the 19th century Kelvin-Planck coalition. It is high time we abolished this antiquated law and took the steps reduce the massive entropy deficit left by decades of inefficiency. This would, in a single stroke, deal with the world energy crisis and start to increase the amount of work available for British citizens, in an efficient cyclical process.

I rather like today's xkcd cartoon...even though they understate homeopathic dilutions...[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="271" caption="Dilution"][/caption]

Courtesy of Information is Beautiful, we now find out what the UK is best at (Because Every Country Is The Best At Something).So, where Madagascar is best at vanilla, the Netherlands is best at Ecstasy, and Estonia is best at Adult Literacy, what is the UK best at?CCTVOh crap!

For those of us tired of hearing how Apple have reinvented mobile computing with the iPad, here's evidence there's one less iPad on the planet - "Will it blend? - iPad" courtesey of Blendtec, via YouTube. As ever, not to be tried at home!

The xkcd web comic has been particularly good lately (a standout was the Mars rover comic), but I found the quirkiness of this one just tickled my funny bone: